


Divine Intervention

by atoxicrose



Series: Anthem Omniverse [2]
Category: Darksiders (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Gore, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 13:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8626672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atoxicrose/pseuds/atoxicrose
Summary: The stench of blood is almost overpowering. Ellie leads Hope through the town, stepping carefully over the corpses. All around her, the small hamlet’s inhabitants lay dead in the streets. Men, women, children. Ellie knows the Reaper’s handiwork when she sees it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by an RP I read a couple years ago when the Darksiders RP scene was still pretty lively.

The stench of blood is almost overpowering. Ellie leads Hope through the town, stepping carefully over the corpses. All around her, the small hamlet’s inhabitants lay dead in the streets. Men, women, children. Ellie knows the Reaper’s handiwork when she sees it.

_Why?_

Death has been gone some weeks now. Not unusual, he often goes off to do his own things, and sometimes he’s gone for months at a time. Ellie doesn’t blame him, he can’t spend _all_ of his time with her, nor does she want him to. It would be far too much of an overload on the both of them.

Ellie halts before the corpse of a girl of about fifteen. She died protecting two children of about two and three, her siblings Ellie assumes. The girl’s blond hair is fanned out around her head, almost like a halo, except that her hair is soaked with her siblings’ blood. Ellie’s throat tightens and her stomach churns.

_Why?_

Ellie bends down and gently lays the dead girl’s hands across her stomach, then reaches up and unpins the large, white lily from her hair. She carefully tucks the flower in between the girl’s fingers and bows her head.

“Mother Amaterasu, bless this place. Soothe their spirits. Sooth my heart.”

Death is waiting for her in the center of the village, staring without seeing at the corpses around him. He doesn’t turn when she approaches. Ellie stops beside him. Her hands ball into fists. Her chest aches. Her stomach twists.

“Why?”

Death doesn’t look at her. “I had to,” he whispers so quietly Ellie has to strain to hear him.

She tips her chin up, knuckles white, eyes hard. Ellie hurts, oh how she _hurts_. “There must have been another way, Death.”

Death looks at her now.  Ellie has always been good at picking out people’s guilt, it was an emotion she was all too familiar with. Not in herself, but in others. She can see it now, shining in his eyes. She feels some of her anger bleed out. He shakes his head slowly. “They were meddling with things they did not understand, Elizabeth. They could not be persuaded. The Council demanded it… the Balance demanded it. There was no other way.” He’s tired. So tired.

Ellie stares at Death for a long moment. These are her people, and she hurts for them. But if they were dabbling in black magic… She closes her eyes and hangs her head. Her hands unclench and shoulders slump, and she lets out a sigh that seems to come from her very soul.

Ellie doesn’t trust the Council, not one bit. But she trusts Death. If he said it had to be done, it had to be done. She doesn’t like it, but then she doesn’t have to. She just has to accept it. She is suddenly very, very tired.

Wordlessly, Ellie moves to his side. She puts a hand on his shoulder and rests her cheek against his arm, sticky with blood. Death’s head tilts in her direction. She can’t see the small, feeble smile behind the mask. He reaches up and pats her hand. Ellie lets out another deep sigh and closes her eyes. Death feels the faint whisper of her will.

The overcast sky overhead darkens and it begins to rain. Just a drizzle at first, it builds gradually into a steady downpour that washes away the blood. The grass around them grows rapidly, reaching waist height on a matter of moments and concealing the corpses of the villagers. Bushes appear and flowers bloom. Trees sprout and they do decades’ worth of growing within minutes. There’s the sound of splintering wood from all over the village as trees grow into or even straight up through the town’s buildings. From the flower tucked in the dead girl’s hands, vines sprout and creep across the ground. They envelope the corpses in leafy shrouds, climb up the sides of buildings and wind around tree trunks.

The rain slackens and then stops entirely. The clouds overhead lighten and the sun breaks through. All at once, the vines blossom. Water droplets glisten on the big white lilies’ petals like jewels.

Ellie opens her eyes.

The village, once a scene of death and destruction, is now a fertile, verdant hollow, brimming with plant life. A living monument to those that died there.

Ellie looks up at Death and Death looks down at Ellie. She gives him a faint smile and squeezes his shoulder.

“C’mon, let’s get out of here,” she says. They call for their mounts.

Before mounting, however, Death seems to remember something. He turns to the nearest vine-covered tree and carefully snaps off a large lily close to the vine. Wordlessly, Death offers the flower to Ellie.

She takes it with a dimpled smile and pins it in her hair. Death mounts and they ride off in silence into the void.

 


End file.
